In response to wheelspanner and tramantona.

It may be appropriate to set out the events which led to Mr Clabburn (as Powerboat Restorations) having to vacate the Trust premises.

It has never been disputed that without Mr Clabburns efforts in the beginning, the Trust may not have started.

Mr Clabburn as you will remember, operated his company "Powerboat Restorations" from the sheds at Marchwood. The company had 3 boats, 81 under restoration, 102 and 206 either stored inside the sheds or moored on the pontoon.

PBR aquired S130, on instruction from her then owner, as a restoration project, to be carried out on the Trust property.

None of these boats  belonged to the Trust.

No fees of any nature whatsoever were asked of PBR, and in exchange, the Trust benefited form Mr Clabburns expertise.

However when any work was performed by PBR,on Trust boats, this was charged to the Trust and, quite rightly, paid for in full by the Trust.

There were 2 problems which had to be addressed.

1. The tenure of the buildings at Marchwood was not as secure as the Trust had been led to believe.

We were aimimg for and had been promised a 125 year lease at pepercorn rent.

This suddenely fell away, and , as a result of the expert work of our then Chairman Mr Charles du Cane, we managed to arrange a 3 year lease. This was the minimum we considered necessary to find homes for all the boats and items within the trust. PBR would have to have left anyway.

2. More importantly, both the Charity Commission as well as the Heritage Lottery Fund, from whom we were expecting a grant, stipulate..quote..

"In additon to any other powers it (the Charity) may have, the Charity has the following powers in order to further the Objects ..

..to raise funds, in doing so the Charity must not undertake any substantial permanant trading activity, and must comply with any relevant statuory regulations....unquote.

As you will see the combination of these two "problems" ended up with the requirement for PBR to find alternative accomodation.

The Trust kept much of PBR boats and equipment for as long as it took PBR to find alternate accomodation, at no cost.

It must be remembered that the Trust itself was in an extremely difficult situation, and it was only as a result of a huge amount of effort on behalf of a small group within the Trust, that a solution was found. This solution was confirmed only  2 months before the deadline to move out.

Mr Clabburns expertise is unquestionaby of great value, however bearing in mind the situation, the Forum was set up to cater for the purpose of bringing people of like minded expertise, interest and historical focus, together, as well as allowing those who have individual projects to make progress,which we sincerely hope it has succeeded in doing.

In this regard, it should be remebered that the Trust web site is a privately sponsored site, ie it is operated at no cost to the Trust.

Should the Forum , and therefore the website as a whole,be seen to be failing to achieve its objectives, then possibly it should be discontinued?

The use of membership funding is carefully distributed between the rental costs of the offices of the Trust remainng at Marchwood, keeping 1502 afloat, maintained and insured for use by any members who wish to do, as well as trying to complete Ark Royal and Dainty, whilst we await the provision of the Maritime Centre at Poole.

As previuosly apologised for the News letter is very late, but this will be acted upon early July.

There is consideration of the AGM taking place at Calshot this year, with 1502 and Ark Royal being available for trips. This will hopefully be confirmed in the July newsletter.

In conclusion, we do greatly appreciate your continued membership of the Trust, without your active moral and financial support, we would have to close the whole operation (Trust) down. Thank you sincerely.

This explanation has allways been available, and was issued at the relevant AGM.

However you are quite correct in that there was an agreement between the Trust and PBR, covering MGB 81.

The main clause stated that "BMPT will be offered first option to purchase on her completion"

Obviously under the prevailing circumstances, with no prospect of a home to go to, and certainly not enough money to buy her even if we had a home, the Trust declined the offer, with regret.

Hello Pathfinder

re. "Should the Forum, and therefore the website as a whole, be seen to be failing to achieve its objectives, then possibly it should be discontinued?"

Please don't. I for one joined BMPT as a "thank you" for the "use" of the forum, which appears an effective network of very knowledgeable and mutually supportive people. If just one more boat is saved eg 506 then the forum will have proved itself.

Now that the Trust has "got over" the loss of the yard, perhaps the BMPTs objectives can be redefined and a step by step plan showing what is being done now and what needs to be done to achieve the longer term goals.

As a starter for 10:

• A list of "at risk" boats needs compiling and (painful though it will be) ranking in order of priority/merit.
• A list of willing individuals and their geographical locations.
• A list of boat yards/facilities which look kindly on those trying to restore an historic boat. (ie proper discounts)
• Sources of free expert advice, shipwrights, engineers, carpenters, etc...
• List of useful suppliers, eg timber, props, engines,....

I have no idea of the geographical location of members, but local groups supported by a "centre/network? of knowledge" might just work, and the forum become the lifeblood of communication.

Thanks again

 getting to the A.G.M. can be difficult for some members who do not live on the south coast, you have given an answer which is fair enough and it gives an indication why a trust that was set up to preserve boat's  chopped up the Range Safety Launch that was in it's care, it would appear that there was apparently no alternative as you have stated 

Gentlemen,

Thank you all for your very welcome postings

I will respond to each in turn, but first a historical  summary.

It is, in my personal opinion, far better that "old coals" be raked over now, that everyone has the opportunity to air their views, and have their worries and questions fully addressed.

To give you a broader picture of the situation at that time, may I explain to you how we went about the Trust business.

1. We had a 3 year time span in which to move everyting we had inside the sheds, out of them.

 There was no option of a "maybe" extension, we had to be out, or what remained would be bulldozed, and burnt. QED.

2. The first thing we had to do was to discover exactly what we had in the sheds.

3. Next we had to discover the history of each item, ie how did it get to the Trust, did it belong to the Trust, was it donated or was it purchased, was it on loan, or was it just "parked" there, was it a PBR project being worked on etc. This proved to be the biggest problem, as the paperwork covering the history of many of the items and boats simply did not exist. If I told you that in some instances it took 2 years to sort out some items, you would probably not believe me, but it did, the RSL being one, Humber being another which are explained later.

4. Having discovered via verbal and extensive phoning and email asking, the answers to most of (3), we started the process of requesting owners of items to recover them, and the unknown owned items, and our own items, to be found homes for.

5. At the same time we had to continue to look for a new home for the Trust, as well as to look carefully into all the offers which we had recieved, for homes for the owned items. 

Here the problems started to accumulate. Many offers were recieved, but as soon as we told the offerers that the removal costs were for their own account, we heard no more.

Within a very short space of time, the 3 years sped by, and it was only 7 days before we closed the shed doors, that MTB331 was finally moved to her new home. Even this was achieved as a result of much phoning on an everday badgering basis, to get things moving.

Rest assured that a huge amount of time was spent in the search for suitable solutions. In the end , some solutions were better than others, but the results were dictated by our time limit, which was an imoveable object, and the "effort" put in by Trust members, to assist with sorting out the problems. Some of this "effort" was made on a dailly slog  basis, 7 days a week, whilst others could only offer their verbal and moral support. Believe it or not, we even had to do battle with some of our own members, whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to bring the Trust to its knees..! All of this "effort" allowed us to reach a solution. The solution may not have been to everybody's liking, but it was far better than the option available at the very beginning, that of walking away and letting it all go up in smoke.

It is perhaps ironic, that after the event, many "offers" have been made, and many demands of "why did you do this" or "why didnt you do that" were made...that is the nature of the beast I suppose, but, as unpaid volunteers, some holding down day jobs as well, we did our absolute best, I can personally promise you, under extremely difficult circumstances. I have to add that for me it was a great personal privilege, to have worked with such a dedicated and unshakeably resolute and optimistic team of volunteering individuals, without whose "effort" and dedication the Trust would most certainly have ceased to exist. All this history is recorded in newsletters, which are available on the front page of the BMPT site for scrutiny.

I only hope that we can now look to the future, and continue to progress, and allow the heritage and history of "The Boats" and all those who fought them, to continue to be recorded and saved .

What is essential is the we have a good following of people who are prepared to work to achieve the objectives.

At this points it seems appropriate to answer DMSmith's posting.

Firstly a sincere thank you Dave for your very positive, spiritually uplifting and forward looking thoughts, with which I personally agree.

All 5 of your points are extremely relevant and achievable. We need  to establish a central point of reference, for which I personally would like to see the BMPT website being used , and then spread the net far and wide to bring in area "detectives" to scout the waterways, river banks and boatyards, and find the boats.( I am trying to put the "Boatyards" together as well..)

As we now have the Coastal Forces Veterans sharing our site temporarily, could we ask their particpation in finding those who are not members but who should be part of the effort..?,After all it is their History we seek to preserve..? Pioneer..?

Regarding the objectives of the Trust, they are as follows..

1. "To maintain and preserve for the public benefit British military powerboats of historic interest"

2. "To advance the education of the Public in the historical context of British military powerboats"

Would you not consider these to be sufficiently "broad" to cover the needs for the future..?

What is missing are the Men and Women who built and fought these boats, but it goes without saying that boats without people do not exist..?

On occasion we stray outside of the "Britsh" boundary.In most cases the "outside" boats were either built for the "British", and used by others, or designed by the "British" for others to build and use, or were adversaries of the "British" and therefore extremely relevant to the need for the "British" boats to be built in the first place..?

As you are aware, we are currnetly in agreement with EISCA,(refer newsletters) who have promised us a place in their Maritime Centre at Poole, which we are really looking forward to. This could be a fantastic "centre of operations" as you describe it..? No dates at the time of writing.

Next, for Tramontana. Thank you for your understanding posting.

I appreciate that for some, getting to the AGM is difficult, but it is the case of the moveables going to the imoveable. Remember that 1502 is available all summer to any members who would like to make use of her, and we are hoping to make Ark Royal equally available. We will try and make the AGM an all day affair, so that it is worth travelling those few extra miles, to enjoy at least some of it..! 

The demise of the RSL is indeed a sad one at first glance, but here is the history.

The RSL belonged to the Military base at Marchwood. She was used as a "chippy" training centre, and "battle damage" was crudely inflicted upon her hull using blunt instruments. This "battle damage" was then repaired by apprentice "chippies" using common timber. She had been robbed of most of her instrumentation, and left open to the weather for many years. When Marchwood had had their way with her, she somehow migrated to the Trust sheds. Her ownership was completely suspect, and after an extremely  long "discussion" with the Army, we received a letter advising us that "she now  belonged to the Trust". All our efforts to find a new home for her came to nothing, and the Trust certainly did not have the funds, nor a home, to either restore her or move her to. Bear in mind that an average move, inclusive of cranes, was in the region of £4000.00. ( 160 memberships)

Two of the Trust members own an RSL 1643, a direct relation to our RSL. The decision was therfore made to offer the boat to the 1643 team. This offer they gladly accepted, but their needs were to remove the usefull parts such as engines and gearboxes, along with wiring and piping, to use to keep their own boat operational, and extend her life span. This exchange could have been achieved by them paying for craneage and trailer to remove the boat from the Trust, to their own premises. The costs of this were obviously high, and the most sensible and cost effective method was that we allow them to break the boat on the Trust site, and remove the parts they needed.  This came about, and we regretfully, burned what was left. However another boat survives as a result of our own sacrifice.

HSL1643 is available to the Trust for events.

RASC "Humber" is another story of lost identity. She did not belong to the Trust. She has a long history of being looked after, but her actual ownership was very unclear. In the end after much investigation, we discovered that she also still belonged to the Army. We politely requested that the Army remove her from the sheds. This in turn promptly produced the necessary "letter of donation" to the Trust..! In the meantime we had found a member of the Trust prepared to take ownership, and remove her at his own expense, for restoration. The deal is that when we have a permanent home she will come back to the Trust in exchange for useage on occasion, by her present owner. ( refer newsletters)

Re HSL142, we were aware of her ownership, and immediately offered her back to her owner Mr Dent.

Her condition when I arrived at the trust was derelict. She was hull only with no superstructure or engines. Many bulkheads had been removed. She had been covered with ply and light tarps, all of which had blown away, and not replaced. She had sustained keel damage when lifted, and a piece of timber had been attached to the keel, where the fracture had occured. She lay on her starboard chine, and as result had aquired a twist in the hull. Every effort was made by Mr Dent and the trust to move her on, but time and finance were against us. It was agreed between Mr Dent and us, that she should, with deep regret, be broken up. Her transom survives, and the Trust member who owns it, is restoring it to original.

I hope this answeres your postings, and if you cannot find an answer in the newsletters on the BMPT front page, please ask and I will try and answer.

In the meantime, can we look forward..

We have 3 boats belongoing to the Trust, 2 of which are operational. We have 3 boats belonging to members, 2 of which are operational.

EISCA have 2 boats

MTB102 works

Gay Archer works

The IWM has 3 boats..maybe they could start a "Boatshed"

If we had the finance and the premises, we would willingfully purchase MGB81, HSL102 and 206 as operational boats, if Mr Clabburn would allow us to do so.

16 boats.

So all is not lost just yet, as out of the ashes, green shoots appear...???

We desperately need membership, donations, ideas and the will to make it all work.

PLEASE..?

Thank you for getting this far..!!.

Thanks Pathfinder for your response to my thoughts. Do excuse my ignorance of The Trust's History, I hadn't read the old newsletters as closely as I should. (I only joined this year). The objectives look just fine to me.

The prospect of the Poole Centre sounds very exciting, as is the possibility of using Mashfords as a temporary base. Previously the trust could be visited by the public and I can see that you are working towards this again.

I certainly take the point about the people who worked and fought with these boats and the tie up with the Veterans Association seems an excellent step forward.

It does appear that WW2 is featuring more in peoples minds. I was educated in the 60's and 70's when children weren't formally tought about The War, my parents and grandparents routinely filled me in with the details!  The 80's and 90's saw no teaching on the subject and many in their 20's and 30's are now frightningly ignorant. I do sense that the tide may be turning with support from the Lottery Fund and new museums. There is plenty of surviving hardware about, eg Military vehicles, aeroplanes, etc.. (more durable than wooden craft). What is worrying though, is the rapidly declining "stock" of WW2 (and older) powerboats and the fact that many more will be lost before the realization of what has happened really hits home to our institutions, councils, etc... Until then, this group appears to be alone in the objective of saving them?

There is also only a finite number of enthusiasts who have enough time, money and bravery to tackle a project on their own, which brings me back to my previous post. I think that the Trust and Forum can be used to support individuals as well as "BMPT" projects and this would be especially valuable for those a long way from the south coast.

Have any local groups been set up? Are there any owners in need of help? Can I do anything?

Finally, no offense caused if you got my name wrong. As you have noticed I needn't hide my identity! and in fact I find the whole pseudonym thing confusing and a trifle annoying!

Cheers

Pseudonyms - These are obviously a part of the original set up for the Forum - but it does help those who would like to add some comment but wish to keep anonymous- for whatever their reasons.

I was pleasantly surprised to read here that DMSmith had made some pertinant comments on the dire state of our national education system over the years - especially the '70's and 80's etc. This is the reason, I would suggest, for the otherwise excellent footage recently shown on Operation 'Chariot' and Exercise 'Tiger' falling woefully short of giving a fuller picture - 'Tiger' without part 1, or 'Chariot' without MTB74, is like a beautiful car without wheels -if you get my drift.

Re. Education, etc...: I think recent television documentaries have been pretty poor, "dumbed down" for us simpletons. I forget when "The World at War" was made, but I don't think a similar proposition would get through today. Clever computer graphics, (e.g. Snow's series and the Ch5 PT boat effort last Monday) seem to have replaced more in-depth reporting.

Re. Pseudonyms: Yes, they are a bit like CB "handles", and I don't think there is anything sinister going on, but if any of you are officers (sunrays or zero alphas) of the trust then perhaps you should go public? Or perhaps as tramontana suggests I can always drop out and leave you gentlemen (or ladies?) to it.

All the best

I just picked my name as I wanted everyone to know where I was!!

Dropping out would not help anyone in anyway so I hope you don't!

Hi all,

Just reading about education, indeed, no WW2 history taught when I was at school, but had relatives who were there and who had served post-war in the forces. However, now, it is being taught, we at the Medway Queen as part of our lottery application, have a programme of talks to schools, using properly checked people etc, and it is going great, talked to a whole school of 120 pupils the other day. I agree that we should get the story of coastal forces out there now, it can only help to keep the story of the contribution of these people to the fore.

JohnK

For several years it has annoyed me that HSL102 gets referred to as 102 as until it was restored MTB102 was referred to as 102. When HSL102 came on the scene we had to change the name of our trust to MTB102 Trust, change the bank account and all our literature to avoid confusion so can you all please use the full title of the HSL or I'll be looking for some torpedoes

Hi Don,

Thank you for the kind words, very much appreciated..

The July Newsletter shown on the front page will give you the information for which you ask, re the boats, Poole,EISCA etc.

Your point taken about getting some update onto certain parts of the site, will do.

We have just completed the AGM with some considerable success, 21 members and partners attended, and I will put the Directors report on the site next week.

More news re S130 about March next year. She is now privately owned.

S130 we have no further news from EISCA.

FMB43957 we are going for a new installation, as getting a 50+year old engine etc, particularly after our loses in the Hythe fire, with parts backup, will not be possible. In addition emmission control will in all probability mean the old engines cannot be used.

Thanks again.

Richard

Thanks for that Tramontana. We have had the VHF problems as well.

I am in complete agreement re engines. It would take a lot of very technical info to convince me to use fire damaged blocks of any kind. Heat distortion is a "funny" thing but no laughing matter when you get problem after problem in use. Something modern and with slightly more power in the same space so it is not working flat out all the time has got to be better.

Richard.

Very interested in the above, with know knowledge it would seem to me that a new installation on FMB Ark Royal would be the way to go, presuming we can get the funds of course! not wishing to teach re eggs but perhaps an engine supplier could "do a deal" in return for the publicity flowing from a working vessel. Of course it's nice to have orgional plant, but the flip side is sometimes reliablitiy and maintance issues. Vello 2 runs orgional plant, one engine completley the other re-built using parts ex similare model.  We will re-use orgional engine for Medway Queen, but different story as it is steam!.

Johnk

Excessive heat on a crankase which is in itself a load/torque bearing "Structure" can cause problems re-shaft alignment, the only other time the casting will reach above that temp  is when it is cast. The cure is to let the casting rest or de-stress which is why when you went past a foundry there were castings laid outside (it was not a problem with internal storage) in fact B.M.W. performance dept use to encourage it's employees to go outside and pee on it's racing crankcases. How's your boilers johnk are you planning to replace them? the last steam job I went on a month ago had "square" boilers. As far as sponsership is concerned some people were under the impression that the H.S.L. and certainly the M.G.B. were bought on behalf of the Trust and were owned by the Trust not privately owned as they turned out to be which gave the impression that the trust name was being used as a "Trojan Horse".

Hi Tramontana.

Indeed, we will be in the market for a new boiler at some stage, our old Scotch boiler was a bit of a beast and we would hope that a new one would be smaller and more efficient, but have not yet got to the stage of looking in depth at that topic, much more to do before, however we are undertaking new design work very shortly so perhaps this will come in to it quite soon ie in terms of weight in relation to the hull. Interesting re the MGB and the trust, do not know if that was the case, but in the past now of course, and I hope as mentioned before, perhaps something may come up regards ownership for the wider public.

JohnK

Re yours and the Trust history.

We need to keep this site for Trust History if possible please, as otherwise it veers off in all and sundry directions.

The Trust cannot under any circumstances put a Trust owned boat under private members names.

If the Trust sells a boat then obviuosly it passes out of Trust ownership.

This is quite in order.

After the departure from Marchwood, certain members considered it their prerogative to use the Trust address list for their own ends.

We did apologise for this at the time,as soon as we were advised that this had happened.

We have sorted many of those long gone differences out hopefully, and are now at peace with most...!!

I see both points above, sounds a bit fence sitting I know, but I believe all of us who take an interest via this forum would hope that going forward along with a number of people who are walking the walk so to speak, ie Medusa and MTB 102 plus it has to be said the work going on with FMB Ark Royal despite the set back of the fire, that more can be done for our coastal forces craft by working together and contributing in any way possible, and hopefully learning from past problems.

Johnk